Supporting scholarship and promoting popular understanding of the American Revolution is central to the work of the American Revolution Institute. The Institute welcomes distinguished scholars and authors to share their insights and discuss their latest research with the public at Anderson House through lectures, author's talks and panel discussions. The Institute also hosts a variety of other historical programs throughout the year, including our Lunch Bite object talks, battlefield tours, special Anderson House tour programs and other events. Many of the events we offer are free.
November 2023
Lecture – A Client State or a Great Power: Radicals vs. Moderates in the Diplomacy of the American Revolution
During the Revolution, American policymakers were divided into two factions—radicals and moderates. Radicals saw the United States as a great power, equal to France and worthy of alliances with as many foreign powers as possible. Moderates, however, doubted American military power and were content to rely on military assistance from France alone. In each case, battlefield results determined who held the upper hand when it came to diplomacy. Radicals prevailed when the war went well, but power quickly shifted in…
Find out more »December 2023
Author’s Talk – God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man
For more than two centuries, all most Americans have ever known about Benedict Arnold is that he committed treason—yet he was more than a turncoat. He was a superb leader, a brilliant tactician, a supremely courageous soldier and one of the most successful military officers of the early years of the Revolutionary War. His capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery duel at Valcour Island and the turning point at the Battle of…
Find out more »Lecture – Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America
On the night of December 16, 1773, a party of Bostonians boarded three British vessels and dumped over three hundred chests of tea into Boston Harbor. In addition to objecting to taxation without representation, the participants were also protesting the Tea Act of 1773, which forced them to pay a tax on top of the monopoly prices set by the East India Company and benefitted the family of the royal governor of Massachusetts. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of this…
Find out more »January 2024
Author’s Talk— Seized with the Temper of the Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America
The Stamp Act riots in Rhode Island and the Regulator Rebellion in North Carolina, although movements in smaller colonies, tell a broader story about the evolution of American political thought in the decades surrounding the American Revolution. Without pre-existing local tensions, the fury of the Stamp Act crisis might not have spilled over during the summer of 1765, and, without the added strains of the imperial crisis, the Regulator Rebellion might not have lasted for five years. Drawing from her…
Find out more »Virtual Author’s Talk— Dishonored Americans: The Political Death of Loyalists in Revolutionary America
In the final words of the Declaration of Independence, the signatories famously pledged their lives, their fortunes and their "sacred Honor" to one another, but what about those who made the opposite choice? By looking through the lens of honor culture of the period, Timothy Compeau, assistant professor of history at Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario, offers an innovative assessment of the experience of Americans who made the fateful decision to remain loyal to the British…
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